Today, much of medicine is focused on the symptoms of disease. Doctors have been taught to deal with disease only after it has entered the symptom stage. Surely, if we really study our bodies we have been given many signs and red flags that make us aware that something is wrong before major disease sets in. For example, let's take a man named John who is 25 and starting to experience some indigestion and acid reflex.

John works at a factory and just moved to third shift. Since the move, John makes it a regular practice after he gets done with work to head to his favorite greasy restaurant and have the special (3) pancakes, cheesy eggs, bacon, sausage and fried hash browns) followed by 2 cups of coffee (decaf) and a glass of O.J. Usually after John's breakfast he heads home and sleeps till 2 or 3 pm, but lately he has been having bad acid reflux and can't figure out why.

This reflux is a great warning from the body. John ignores his body's natural warning that is crying out "Please treat me better than this, I can't handle all those greasy fried foods" and decides to take 5 or 6 antacids before he goes to sleep. Our stomach is the most acidic organ in the body (having a PH of 2-3) and is meant to stay acidic for proper digestion of food and absorption of nutrients. Instead of changing his diet and having fruit or oatmeal before he goes to bed, John just relieves the symptoms. After 3 or 4 months the antacids have stopped working so John goes to the doctor. Even though John had never had any reflux problems before recently, the doctor hypothesizes that John's stomach is far too acidic and he should be on a medication that blocks his stomach acid. After being on the medication John has noticed that he still has reflux, but "at least it doesn't burn as bad." Unfortunately the strong acid environment

of the stomach has now been changed to a very weak acid and John' food is hardly getting broken down before it enters the small intestine. Since most of the absorption of nutrients occurs within the first 10 inches of the small intestine, John is absorbing very few nutrients from any of his food. After 3 years of being on acid blocker John feels exhausted and weak; his hair has started to fall out and he has been having trouble concentrating at work.



What if John had just listened to his body's first warning sign? What if he changed his diet instead of changing his body's chemical makeup? What if instead of trying to fix the symptom (reflux) he focused on the root of the problem (diet of devitalized and poor quality food?

Understanding this scenario is crucial to understanding the body's innate ability to thrive and heal itself. The body makes the best choices for survival and health at all times, yet if we don't give the right materials to the body it cannot build the health that we would desire. At Continuum Healing we focus mainly on what has caused the dis-ease – rather than just suppress and manage disease symptoms. As we encourage balance within the body we see the symptoms (those which we first considered the disease) start to disappear, leaving us not only with health but with a greater trust in our body's ability to defend, heal and balance itself.